Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter collection 11-15

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  “So you’ll hold a little of yourself back from everybody.”

  “No,” I said, “I’ll hold back a piece of myself for myself. No one gets all of me, Jason, no one, except me.”

  He shook his head. “So Jean-Claude gets sex, but no blood. Nathaniel gets intimacy, but not intercourse. Asher gets blood but not intercourse. Micah’s getting intimacy and intercourse, what are you holding back from him?”

  “I don’t love him yet.”

  “Liar.”

  “I lust after him, but I don’t love him yet.”

  “And Richard, what did you hold back from Richard?”

  I stood there wrapped in the damned sheet, feeling the world sinking away to a small screaming thing. “Nothing,” I said, “I held back nothing, and he dumped my ass.”

  Jason just sat there for a second or two, then he got off the bed. I think he meant to hold me, comfort me.

  I put out a hand to stop him. “If you hug me, I’m going to cry, and Richard has gotten the last tear out of me that he’s going to get.”

  “I’m sorry, Anita.”

  “Not your fault.”

  “No, but it wasn’t any of my business either. I don’t have the right to psychoanalyze you.”

  “You’re just jealous,” I said, and I tried to make it light, joking, and failed.

  “About what?” he asked.

  “That I have so many people that I could be in love with, if I’d only give that one last inch.”

  He sat back down on the edge of the bed. “You’re right, damn it, but you’re right. I am jealous, but I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t understand until the moment you said how afraid you were of being consumed. I want to be consumed, Anita. I want someone to come along and burn me up.”

  “You’re a romantic,” I said.

  “You make that sound like a dirty word.”

  “Not dirty, Jason, just useless.” I started for the door. “I’m going to get cleaned up, help yourself to the upstairs shower if you want.” Jason called to me, but I kept walking. I’d had all the pillow talk I wanted for one day.

  25

  I LOVED THE new shower that I’d had installed in the downstairs master bathroom. One of the bear lycanthropes in town turned out to be a plumber. I’d still paid full price, but at least I knew he wouldn’t be asking stupid questions about my living arrangements. I liked a good long bath when the occasion called for it, but at heart I was a shower girl.

  I set the showerhead on hard, so that the water beat against my neck, head, shoulders. I hadn’t been embarrassed about having sex with Jason, and maybe that was wrong, but it hadn’t felt sinful. Maybe because it was just another way for him to take care of me. But the little talk afterwards, that had bothered me. That hard emotional truths bothered me more than having intercourse with someone I wasn’t in love with probably said something about how far down the well of moral decay I had fallen.

  I stood in the hot, hot water, steam foaming against the glass doors of the stall, and was happy that I didn’t owe my heart to anyone. It was mine damn it, and I was keeping it in one piece if I could. Richard had broken some part of me, some last bit that had been trying to hang onto a softer more romanticized view of love. He had left, dumped me because I wasn’t human enough for him. My fiancé in college had dumped me because I wasn’t white bread enough for his mother. My stepmother, Judith, had never let me forget that I was small and dark, and she and her children and my father, were tall and blond, and blue-eyed. People had spent my lifetime rejecting me for things I could not change about myself. So fuck them, fuck them all.

  I was sitting on the bottom of the shower. I hadn’t meant to. I hadn’t meant to huddle in the water, hiding. Why was I always chasing after the love of people who I could never be enough for? There were plenty of others who wanted me exactly as I was, small, dark, hard, bloody, thick with metaphysical shit. People who loved me just as I was. Unfortunately, none of them were me.

  There was a knock on the door, and I realized that someone had been knocking for a while. I always locked the door when I went in, out of habit.

  I turned the water down, so I could hear better. “What is it?”

  “Anita, it’s Jamil, I need to come in.”

  “Why?” That one word held a universe of suspicion. If his reason had been something I wouldn’t hate he’d have already said why he needed to come in.

  I actually heard him sigh through the door. “It’s Richard, he’s hurt, and we need to use the big bathtub.”

  “No,” I said. I turned off the water and reached for the oversized towel.

  “Anita, since the pack sold Raina’s house we don’t have any body of water big enough to soak him and other pack members in. I found him unconscious on his bedroom floor, he’s ice cold.”

  I wound a smaller towel around my wet hair. “You are not bringing him in here, Jamil. There’s got to be some place else to take him. Jean-Claude would let you use the tub at his place.”

  “Anita, he’s icy, if we don’t get him warm soon, I don’t know what’ll happen.”

  I leaned my head against the door. “Are you telling me that he’s going to die?”

  “I’m telling you, I don’t know. I’ve never seen another werewolf this bad without some kind of wound to show for it. I don’t know what’s wrong with him.”

  I did, unfortunately. Belle hadn’t only fed her people off of me, she’d been feeding off of Richard, too. I’d thought about that earlier in the day, but I hadn’t dreamed that he wouldn’t call his pack and have some of them near him, to strengthen himself on their collected energy. I hadn’t known that he would just let himself die. Because long before he got that bad he’d have known something was very wrong.

  “Did he call you for help?” I asked, still leaning against the door.

  “No, I needed to ask him about pack business, and I tried him at the school, but he’d called in sick. Then I called his house and got no answer. Anita, please, let us in.”

  Mother fucking son of a bitch. I could not believe that I was having to do this. The man that had broken my heart, called me a monster was about to get soaked in my bathtub for God knew how long.

  I unlocked the door and opened it with me behind, hiding, so I couldn’t be seen, or see.

  Jamil eased through the door with Richard in his arms. It wasn’t weight that made it hard—Jamil could have bench-pressed the entire bathroom—it was that Richard was broad-shouldered, and Jamil wasn’t small himself.

  I tried not to look at either of them, getting only a brief glimpse of Jamil’s cornrowed hair, bright red beads intertwined. His shirt was a red to match the beads, his suit jacket black. I didn’t take the time to see if his pants matched the jacket. I just started for the door, towels clutched to me.

  “Can you turn on the water for me, Anita?” Jamil asked.

  “No,” I said, and I fled.

  26

  I GOT DRESSED. I couldn’t remember if I’d gotten around to using shampoo on my hair, or only gotten it wet, and I didn’t care. I had an image of Richard’s face burned in my mind. Eyes closed, that perfectly square jaw with its dimple. But there had been no spill of that glorious hair around his shoulders. That wonderful hair that was brown shot with gold and copper, so that it almost glowed in the sunlight. He’d cut his hair. He’d cut his hair.

  I remembered the feel of it in my hands, the silken slide of it over my body, the spill of it around his face when he rose over me. Richard lying underneath my body, his hair like a rich cloud on the pillow, as his eyes lost focus and his body thrust into mine.

  I was sitting on the bed, crying, when there was a knock at the door. I had jeans on, but had only gotten to my bra. “Just a minute.” My voice was only a little thick.

  I slipped the red T-shirt on over the black jeans. I started to say come in, then realized it could be Richard. Unlikely since he was unconscious minutes ago, but I couldn’t take the chance. “Who is it?”

  “Nathaniel.”
>
  “Come in.” I scrubbed at my eyes and had my back to the door, while I looked at my shoulder holster and tried to figure out what I’d done with my belt. I needed the belt to slide through the shoulder holster. Where the hell was my belt?

  “The police are on the phone,” he said, voice quiet.

  I just shook my head. “I can’t find my belt.”

  “I’ll find it for you,” he said. I knew from his voice that he was farther into the room now. I hadn’t heard him move. It was like I wasn’t hearing everything, like I was losing pieces of things.

  “What’s wrong with me?” I hadn’t actually meant to say it out loud.

  “Richard’s here,” Nathaniel said, as if that explained it all.

  I kept shaking my head, trying to run my hands through my wet hair. It was tangled. I hadn’t used shampoo, let alone conditioner. It was going to be a mess when it dried. “Fuck!”

  He touched my shoulder, and I jerked away. “No, no, don’t be nice to me. If you’re nice I’ll cry.”

  “Do you want me to be cruel, would that make you feel better?”

  It was such an odd question that it made me look at him. He was still wearing the jogging shorts he’d left the room in, but he’d unbraided his hair and brushed it into a shining auburn curtain. A stray bit of sunlight gleamed in his hair. I knew what all that hair felt like rushing over my body. It was so thick, so heavy, that it made a sound like dry water when it cascaded around me. I’d always denied myself everything that Nathaniel could offer. I’d always backed off from enjoying every part of him. Jason’s words came back to haunt me. That I hadn’t really given myself completely to anyone. That I held back something from everyone. I’d held back huge chunks of myself from Nathaniel. More than any of the other men in my life, he was the one that I’d held back from the most, because I didn’t believe I was keeping him. Once I had the ardeur under control I wouldn’t need a pomme de sang every day. Once I could feed the ardeur from a distance like Jean-Claude could, I’d stop using a pomme de sang. Wouldn’t I?

  He looked worried. “What’s wrong, Anita?”

  I shook my head.

  He took a step towards me, and that small movement sent his hair swirling over one shoulder. He gave a negligible flip of his head, sending it sliding back behind him.

  I had to close my eyes, and breathe, in and out, concentrate on just breathing. I would not cry. I would not fucking cry again. Every time I thought Richard had gotten the last tears he’d ever get from me, I always seemed to be wrong. Every time I thought there was no other way he could tear me up, he found a new way. Nothing turns to hate so bitter as what once was love.

  I opened my eyes and found Nathaniel close enough to touch. I stared into those compassionate lilac eyes, that soft, caring face, and I hated him. I don’t know why. But I hated him just a little. I hated him for not being someone else. I hated him for the hair that fell to his knees. I hated him because I didn’t love him. Or maybe I hated him because I did. But it wasn’t what I felt for Richard. I hated him, and I hated me. In that one instant I hated everyone in my life, everyone and everything, and me most of all.

  “We are out of here,” I said.

  He frowned. “What?”

  “You, me, Jason, we’re out of here. I need to take Jason back to the Circus before Jean-Claude wakes up anyway. We’ll pack a bag, and we’ll give the house over to Richard.”

  Nathaniel widened his eyes. “You mean to leave this house until Richard is gone?”

  I nodded, maybe a little too fast, maybe a little too often, but I had a plan, and I was sticking to it.

  “What will Micah say?”

  I shook my head. “He can join us at the Circus.”

  Nathaniel looked at me for a second, then he shrugged. “How long will we be there?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, and looked away from him. He hadn’t protested, hadn’t accused me of cowardice. He just stuck to the facts. We were going. How long would we be gone?

  “I’ll pack for a couple of days, if we need other things, I’ll come back for them.”

  “You do that,” I said.

  He moved towards the door, leaving me to stare around the room. “Your belt is at the foot of the bed.”

  That made me look at him. There was something in his eyes, something older than he was, something that made me want to squirm and look away, but I was already running from Richard, I couldn’t run away from anything else. One act of extreme cowardice per day was about all my ego could handle.

  “Thanks,” I said, and my voice sounded too soft, too hoarse, too something.

  “Do you want me to pack a bag for you, too?” His face had fallen back into neutral lines, as if he’d realized the look in his eyes was too raw for me, right now.

  “I can pack,” I said.

  “I can pack for both of us, Anita, it’s not a problem.”

  I started to argue, then stopped. I’d spent the last twenty minutes trying to find a belt that I’d probably walked over twice. If I packed in the state I was in, I’d probably forget to bring underwear. “Fine.”

  “What do you want me to tell Sergeant Zerbrowski?” he asked.

  “I’ll talk to him while you pack.”

  Nathaniel nodded. “Okay.”

  I took the time to tuck my shirt in, put my belt on, and thread my shoulder holster. I checked that the clip in my gun was full, automatically. I started to say something to Nathaniel and those old eyes in that young face, but I didn’t have anything worth saying. We were fleeing the house until Richard was gone. With that decision, I didn’t know what to say.

  I left Nathaniel and went into the kitchen to get the phone, wondering if Zerbrowski would still be on the other end, or if his patience would have faded before my confusion had.

  27

  I ENTERED THE kitchen and found the phone on the hook, and Caleb sitting at the kitchen table. Caleb was my least favorite of the new leopards who had come in when Micah and I merged our pards. He was cute enough in a young, boy-hooker, MTV sort of way. Curly brown hair with the lower part shaved short, and the top a crown of thick curls that flopped over his eyes artfully. His tanned skin was dark, not quite as dark as his hair. The tan had faded a little in the few months he’d been in town. His eyes were a nice solid brown with a silver hoop piercing one eyebrow. His smooth upper body was naked so I could see his belly button piercing. I also noted that he’d added two new piercings—both nipples were pierced with tiny silver dumbbells. He routinely went around with the top button of his jeans unfastened, his explanation was that the waistband irritated the belly piercing. I didn’t believe him, but since I had never even pierced my ears, I couldn’t really call him a liar.

  He kept one hand on the coffee cup, but the other one traced over his chest and rolled one of the little silver dumbbells between his fingers. “I had them done a couple weeks ago. Like them?”

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, and I didn’t care that it sounded hostile. I was having a hard day and having Caleb in my kitchen wasn’t going to improve it.

  “Taking messages for you.” He hadn’t risen to my grumpy bait. It wasn’t like Caleb to miss an opportunity to bitch.

  “What messages?”

  He held out a small sheet of paper to me. His face was as neutral as he could manage, only that faint gleam in his eyes that he never quite lost. That look that said, I’m thinking wicked thoughts, about you.

  I took a breath, let it out slowly, and went over to him to get the paper. I recognized the notepaper; it was one of the sheets we kept near the phone. Caleb held on to it for a second too long, making me pull a little, but he let it go and didn’t say anything irritating. That was almost a first.

  I looked at the note. I didn’t recognize the writing, which probably meant it was Caleb’s. It was surprisingly neat, all block letters. “NO ONE’S DEAD. WHEN YOU HAVE TIME, CALL ME. DOLPH IS ON A TWO-WEEK LEAVE OF ABSENCE. LOVE ZERBROWSKI.” I must have raised an eyebrow at the end part, becau
se Caleb said, “I wrote down exactly what the policeman said. I didn’t add anything.”

  “I believe you. Zerbrowski thinks he’s a wit.” I met Caleb’s brown eyes. “Why are you here, Caleb?”

  “Micah called me on his cell phone, told me to stay close to you today.” He didn’t look particularly happy about it.

  “Did he mention why he wanted you to stay close to me today?”

  Caleb frowned. “No.”

  “And you dropped everything you had planned today to come baby-sit me, out of the goodness of your heart.”

  He tried to keep frowning, then gradually that smile of his that matched the wicked light in his eyes emerged. It was an unpleasant smile, as if he was thinking unkind thoughts, and those thoughts amused him very, very much.

  “Merle told me he’d hurt me if I failed Micah on this.”

  Merle was Micah’s chief bodyguard, six foot of muscle, and attitude that would make a Hell’s Angel think twice. Caleb was about five six and soft in ways that said he had nothing to do with muscles.

  I had to smile. “Merle’s threatened you before, and it hasn’t impressed you much.”

  “That was before Chimera died. He liked me better than he liked Merle or Micah. I knew he’d protect me, no matter what Merle said.”

  Chimera had been their old pard leader, in a way he’d been like the Godfather of lycanthrope groups. But he was dead now, and we’d divided his people up among ours. Most of them thought it was an improvement because Chimera had been a sexual sadist, a serial killer, and an all-round very bad man. But a few, who had enjoyed helping him mete out his little blood fantasies, seemed to miss Chimera. Since Chimera had been one of the scarier things I’d ever run into in a list that included would-be gods, and millenia-old vampires, I didn’t trust any of his people that were nostalgic for the good ol’ days. Caleb was one of those.